Twilight in the Woods
by SpaceNugget11
Summary: Moving from Suna back to rainy Konoha is the pits, partly because Haruno Sakura's already halfway through her senior year of high school, but mostly because of the vampire infestation. We all know how this story goes...right? M for language. — SasuSaku, NaruSaku, AU


_Sakura, it's me. Call me back when you get this, it's urgent. _

_. _

_. _

_. _

_Ding. _

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have just been cleared to land at the Amakusa Municipal Airport. Please make sure one last time your seat belt is securely fastened. The flight attendants are currently passing around the cabin to make a final check and pick up any remaining cups and glassed. Thank you."

_Ding. _

Sakura felt the plane tilt as it began its descent and her heart went down with it. She had spent the last six hours and thirty minutes eating free peanuts while watching terribly formatted movies on the puny screen in front of her. Now, with the plane descending and her in-flight entertainment cut, she had no choice but to face reality, and it kind of sucked—everything from the baby crying two seats over, to the stale cabin air, to the fact that in less than twenty minutes she'd be back home in Fire Country.

The landing gears whined mechanically beneath her feet, and Flight 2021A began its controlled spiral down. Sakura pulled up her window shade and peered out. Fire sprawled below her in its unending forests, broken up only by its few pockets of civilizations. Further out at its edges, she spied the gray mass of the Eastern Sea. Its name was a misnomer. Fire was known to be one of the rainiest territories of all nine nations. The towering Hokage Mount Ranges to the south trapped the moisture coming off the ocean, resulting in a near-constant ceiling of clouds and an incessant rainfall that crept even into your dreams.

A few hours from Amakusa, entangled in the northern wilderness, lay her hometown, Konoha. Only one mainstreet cut through the center of town, and it connected directly to the highway, thoughtfully making it as easy as possible for the rare visitor to leave with minimal fuss and maximum efficiency. It had been a decade since Sakura had last been there, and since then the population had grown from 3,129 citizens to a staggering 3,142. For scale: her high school in Suna held about 2,300 enrolled students, not including faculty. _Old _high school.

Droplets of rain began to streak her window, and Sakura slid the shade shut on the dismissal view. Somewhere behind her, the crying baby erupted into a screaming fit as the plane's descent grew steeper. She tightened her lap belt one last time.

.

.

When she landed, Sakura's phone chimed with a message from Tsuande explaining she would be working late today, so Jiraiya would be picking her up from the airport. A second message contained Jiraiya's phone number in case Sakura couldn't find him, which proved to be wholly unnecessary.

It had been ages since she had last seen her master's friend, but ten years mean little to mountains, and Jiraiya had remained immutable to time. At six-foot-five, he was tall, but the 280 pounds of muscle on his frame made him massive. The barrel-chested man towered over the average mortal, and she spotted him even before she made it all the way through the exit.

"Oh! Sakura!" He roared and waded through the throng of people towards her.

Two muscle-bound arms appeared out of nowhere and crushed her to a flannel-covered chest. Jiraiya's voice rumbled through her as he laughed mightily. "It's you, isn't it? I'd recognize that pink hair anywhere!"

"Hey ya old perv, you're going to kill her at that rate."

"Ah, oops, my bad, my bad," Jiraiya apologized and stepped away. "Forgive an old man, just got a little excited there, I haven't seen you since you were yea big," Jiraiya held his hand up somewhere around his knee. "Do you remember how much you used to follow me around? Ah you were so darn cute back then. How've you been, young lady?"

"I've been good," she managed breathlessly and readjusted the duffle bag on her shoulder while trying smooth her frazzled hair back into place.

"My, my you've gotten so pretty! I always knew you'd turn out to be quite the looker!"

Sakura wanted to thank him, but Jiraiya thumped her so hard on the back it came out as a wheeze instead. It was easy to forget the man had a PhD.

"Heya Sakura, remember me?" A wiry young man stepped out from behind Jiraiya's hulking mass.

"Uhm…" Sakura tried, attempting to place his fisherman's hat and lopsided smile.

He leaned in closer, and the straps around his face swayed as his blue eyes glittered. "Aw, c'mon Sakura. Don't tell me you don't remember. It's me, Naruto!" He tore the hat off his head, revealing a mess of blonde hair. "Naruto Uzumaki!"

Jiraiya clapped a hand on the teen's shoulder. "He used to come over to Tsunade's with me, and you two would go frog-hunting in the woods. You were quite the bully too, if I recall. I remember you pushed him into a puddle once because he didn't want to eat your mud pies."

"She didn't bully me, I keep telling you, I _slipped_. I slipped into that puddle, damnit!" Naruto angrily stuffed his hair back under his hat.

"Naruto...oh!" Sakura suddenly recalled a boy perpetual grass-stains on his shirt and a missing front tooth.

"About time! Bet you're shocked you almost forgot this handsome face." He put a hand to his chin and waggled his brows, giving her what he approximated to be a roguish smile.

"Your full set of teeth threw me off for a bit," she admitted.

"Hey, you know what, you gave me that missing tooth, first place," he accused. "The reason I didn't want that dumb mud pie was because the last one you made me eat had a freaking rock it!"

"Ah, no worries I can carry it—" Sakura began.

"Don't be ridiculous," Naruto said and continued his mission in relieving her of her duffle bag, and Sakura was happy to lose the fight after being sardined in an airplane seat for the past six hours. He craned his neck to look over her shoulder. "Is that it?"

"That's it," she confirmed. "That's all I have." She didn't own much to begin with, but she had culled most of her wardrobe before the move. Tank tops and skirts may have been optimal desert gear back in Suna, but they were worthless in Konoha.

"All-righty! Let's blow this popsicle joint! To the Toad-mobile!" Naruto pointed heroically towards the exit.

"Do you have a rain jacket, Sakura?" Jiraiya asked.

"Yeah, should I put it on?"

Naruto laughed while zipping up his orange slicker. "Don't tell me you already forgot Sakura. It's always raining in Konoha."

.

.

.

Sakura soon learned "The Toad-mobile" was Jiraiya's 1970's station wagon. The vehicle appeared innocuous enough from the outside, but opening the backdoor revealed the origins of its name.

"Oh," was all Sakura could manage.

Naruto threw her duffle in the back and slammed the trunk shut. "Feel free to push things aside to make room for yourself," he told her. "The old fart's just a little nutso."

"Hey! I heard that!" Jiraiya said as he squeezed into the passenger's side and reclined deeply in his seat so his head wouldn't bump the roof of the car.

"You were supposed to," Naruto threw back.

Sakura followed their lead and climbed into the backseat, wordlessly moving aside the pile of toad dolls, revealing in the process the toad-patterned seat covers beneath. As she went to pull on her seatbelt, she noted that the floor mats were rendered in the likeness of giant lily pads. Up front, a miniature army of toad figurines—some cartoonish-ly adorable, and some who, Sakura would never learn, were astonishingly anatomically accurate—had laid siege across the dashboard's entirety. The only break from this ecologically unsustainable madness was a pair of pink fuzzy die dangling from the rearview mirror in what appeared to be a lukewarm attempt at variety.

"This is the old fart's car," Naruto explained—apologized—as he slid into the driver's street. "He's a herpetologist."

"It means I study amphibians, but I specialize in toads," Jiraiya explained in case Sakura's powers of deduction were below the curve.

"That's…interesting?" Sakura offered.

Naruto tried to dissuade the older man from further sharing his research finding, assuring him, "Nobody gives a flying fuck about your frogs." Sakura remained silent, choosing to neither confirm nor deny Naruto's statement in her politeness.

"Toads, you damn brat, not frogs! _Toads_! How many times do I have to keep telling you, you ignorant lump!" Jiraiya had railed. Fortunately for everyone else in the car, Jiraiya pursued the subject no further, and Sakura tried her best to keep the mountain of stuffed amphibians from avalanching into her as they pulled out of the airport and popped onto the highway.

A few exits later, they were zipping down a two-lane road that cut into the heart of a forest where the old trees crowded closely over them, watching their little station wagon pass beneath the shadow of their overlapping boughs.

"Are you warm enough back there?" Jiraiya suddenly asked.

"Want us to turn up the heat?" Naruto asked, his hand already straying towards the climate control. The rain had picked up and the windshield wipers were frantically trying to keep pace.

"Ah, no it's—" Before she could finish, their ride hit a pothole, knocking the rest of her answer silent. A particularly large orange specimen tumbled off the pile of dolls and landed neatly in her lap. Instinctively, Sakura hugged it close.

"The road here can be a little rough—bear with it for a bit," Jiraiya said, raising his voice over the din of heater, which Naruto had cranked up to full blast.

Sakura pressed her forehead against the window and watched the woods whip by in a dizzying succession of tree trunk after tree trunk after tree trunk. She tightened her hold on the toad and closed her eyes, trying to focus instead on the windshield wipers as they pumped out a beat against the rain. The car hummed beneath her as it carried them closer and closer to her old hometown.

.

.

.

Sakura woke to the sound of tires crunching on gravel. She opened her eyes groggily just as the Toad-mobile pulled past a pair of iron wrought gates that had swung open to allow their entry. The gates groaned shut behind, and Naruto eased the car down the white graveled lane, winding through a stand of willows and sycamores, before finally coming to a halt in a large circular driveway.

"Here we are!" Jiraiya announced as Naruto pulled the brakes and killed the engine. Sakura peered out. The rain had slowed to a soft drizzle, and through the mist she spied the dwelling from her childhood. In a different life, before settling in the Fire Country as the governor, Tsunade had amassed quite the nest egg while taking over Kumo's international stock exchange. On top of that, the woman was the heiress to a massive timber industry established by her late-grandfather. Accordingly, Tsunade lived in a handsome blue estate with white trimmings and ionic columns and guarded fiercely by hedges trimmed into shapes only the rich could afford. Never once did she miss this place.

Jiraiya peered out his window. "Hmm, looks like the dragon has yet to return to her lair."

"You still got the spare?" Naruto asked.

Jiraiya opened the glove compartment and after rummaging through a rubble of manila folders, empty chip bags, and used tissues, he procured a single key dangling from a keyring.

Jiraiya and Naruto popped open their car doors, and Sakura hurried to follow. "Where are you both—"

Jiraiya caught her around the shoulders and held the key before her, grinning victoriously. "Not to worry, old Jiraiya here has it all under control," he purred.

"Does the gran know you still have that?" Naruto asked as he opened the trunk to grab Sakura's belongings.

"Of course she does! What kind of person do you take me for?"

"A perv." Naruto slammed the trunk shut. "C'mon Sakura," he called as he made his way down the brick path with her bag. "Hurry up, before he does something creepy like try and cop a feel."

Jiraiya instantly retracted his arm from Sakura's shoulder, repurposing it for an angry fist shake in the blonde's direction. "Slander! I should throw you in the pound for that you mangy brat!" He stormed off in Naruto's direction. "And where do you think you're going? You can't even get in without me!"

Sakura hung back, staring past the neatly manicured lawns out to where the forest stood waiting. Tsunade's estate sat right where the line between the wilderness and town began to blur, and though her master probably had erected a fence out there somewhere, her stomach instinctively twisted at the sight.

"Hey! Sakura! You coming?" Naruto hollered, already halfway through entrance.

"Yeah, in a sec!" She replied loudly and hurried after him, feeling like the woods were nipping at her heels.

Once inside, Jiraiya closed the door behind them just as the rain began picking up again. The sound carried loudly in the large foyer and echoed against the cold marbled floors. An imposing set of double staircases led down from the second floor and curved towards them. The real focal point of the room was the massive chandelier overhead, dripping with crystals the size of her fist. Directly below it sat a towering flower arrangement that likely cost more than the table it was set upon.

"Brrr, expectedly frigid the Ice Queen's castle, isn't it, kids?" Jiraiya hugged himself and ran his hands up and down his arms. "I'll turn on the heat. Naruto, you show Sakura her bedroom."

"What about you?"

"I'll be in the living room watching TV. Don't worry Sakura," he said, giving her a wink. "We won't leave you alone until Tsuande's back."

"You know, Gran's gonna beat the living shit out of you if take her liquor again," Naruto warned.

"Ah! I didn't even think of that!" Jiraiya happily skipped off on the marbled floors. "Now where _did _the ol' gal l keep her whiskey collection again?" He crowed delightedly.

Naruto watched him go with a look of mild disapproval. He shook his head and started up the staircase. "C'mon, Sakura, I'll show you your pad—it's pretty sweet."

Her room was nothing out of the ordinary for the house, which was to say, it was pretty extraordinary. The room was outfitted with all the impractical things money could buy: a TV, a fireplace, a needlessly large dresser, and a bed that was a spectacle in its own right. Aside from the running start she'd probably need to get on it, its most striking feature was the ivy metalwork trailing up its four posters and meeting in a canopy of branches of leaves overhead. With one glance, Sakura immediately knew the whole thing was crafted from pure silver.

"Like I said, pretty sweet, huh?" Naruto said as he passed her bag through the threshold. "Anyways, I'll be downstairs with the old fart. Just holler if you need anything."

The blonde slipped away, waving off her thanks and leaving Sakura to her own devices. After washing off her travel grime, she dug into her duffle and scrounged up an old band tee, her holey sweatpants, and what she assumed were a clean pair of underwear. Transformation into her bum clothes complete, she flopped onto her bed and flipped over onto her back, contemplating the craftsmanship of the interlocking leaves and stems above her.

She closed her eyes, telling herself she'd rest a bit before joining Naruto and Jiraiya downstairs.

When she opened her eyes again everything was dark. She thought she was back in her old apartment until she pushed herself up and her hands sunk deep into an unfamiliar mattress. That wasn't right.

"What?" She groaned loudly, partly in distress and partly in sleepy disorientation. Her head spun. Where was she again? Fire, Konoha, Tsuande's place. She flew in on a plane. Naruto, Jiraiya. Staircases. It all clicked into place, and her confusion fell away like a pair of shackles. She must have fallen asleep, long enough for it to have grown dark outside. The rain pattered loudly against the window on the far side of the room. Instinctively, she looked around blearily for a clock. Finding none, she slipped out of the bed and stumbled through the darkness, her legs unsteady beneath her as she made off in the general direction of her duffle bag, almost tripping over it in the process.

She plunged her hands into one of the side pockets and recovered her phone. Squinting against the brilliantly lit screen, she managed to understand the time to be 11:03 PM and that she also had a bunch of notifications she never figured out how to unsubscribe from. She had arrived to Tsunade's place around 2 in the afternoon, and had probably fallen asleep around 3:30 PM. Before Sakura's higher cognitive functions could kick in and decipher what this all really meant, the door to her bedroom open.

"Sakura?" It was Tsuande's voice.

She croaked out something that she hoped sounded like a yes.

Then the suddenly lights all flicked on overhead and Sakura winced in pain.

"You're awake," observed the older woman.

Sakura stood from where she had been crouching. "I am—" she began to agree before a massive yawn swallowed up her words. She rubbed her eyes. "Mostly."

Tsuande strode across the room, passing Sakura before seating herself on the tufted chaise by the window, forcing Sakura to turn around and take a seat in the arm chair opposite from her; even in her green bathrobe and fuzzy slippers the woman cut a fearsome figure. Her aunt appraised her with golden eyes. Sakura fidgeted in her old band tee and holey sweatpants.

"How was your flight?"

"It was fine—good—great! I think I was more tired than I thought," Sakura admitted.

"Yes, Jiraiya came to check up on you and said you were out like a light. Are you hungry?"

"No, not really." Actually, the complete opposite; her mouth felt like it had just been plastered with drywall. "Are Jiraiya and Naruto still-"

"They left when I showed up, and I'm pretty sure that overgrown buffoon took half my whiskey collection with him too," she growled. "Sorry for not being here when you arrived, I had a meeting in capital," she added, though it sounded more like an explanation than an apology.

"No, it's no worries at all," Sakura assured her.

Tsunade nodded and placed a fat manila envelope on the coffee table between them. Sakura took it and pulled out its contents: scans of newspaper clippings, memos, and reports. She'd be up all night reviewing them.

"You'll find everything we know in there. School starts tomorrow."

"Already? Uh, not that that's a problem," Sakura assured her.

"I've enrolled you in Konoha High. It's a twenty minute drive from here. It's right off the main road so there shouldn't be any problems with finding it. You can borrow one of my cars tomorrow morning to get there. If you have any questions, we can discuss them more in detail when I get home from work tomorrow evening. The school and the area around the estate are relatively safe for now."

"Understood," Sakura said.

"Well then, school starts at 8:00 AM sharp." Tsunade rose from her seat and Sakura hurried to rise with her. "I'm sure I won't get any phone calls regarding your tardiness?"

Sakura trailed after her. "No, of course not."

"And I don't think I have to say this, but, I'm glad you're here," she said without stopping her march.

Before Sakura could think of an adequate response, Tsunade was out the door. "I'll be four rooms down if you have an emergency. There are some...new clothes in the dresser," she added before shutting the door behind her. Sakura exhaled a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. Turning around, she set off for the desk with the thick stack of papers weighing heavily in her hand.


End file.
